Scientific data format used to store nucleic acid sequences (such as DNA sequences) or protein sequences; may contain multiple sequences and therefore is sometimes referred to as the FASTA database format; can be viewed and analyzed using DNA analysis software.

FASTA files often start with a header line that may contain comments or other information. The rest of the file contains sequence data. Each sequence starts with a ">" symbol followed by the name of the sequence. The rest of the line describes the sequence and the remaining lines contain the sequence itself.